Since God, in His infinite wisdom, has seen fit to a. give me a bout of mild insomnia/restless leg tonight and b. give me a bit of encouragement via email, I have decided to bestow upon you, my faithful readers – yes, all 4 of you! – a bit of a teaser for Unbreak Her Heart. Especially for those of you who have read earlier versions, but not this one. Yes, Angela and Penny, I’m looking at you :).

Without further ado, the first page of the recently written new first chapter.

~Chapter 1~

~Mandie~

~July 2005~

“No, I’m not going.”

“Please,” Liz pleaded with me. “It’s twenty minutes. That’s it. Twenty minutes. It’s not like you’ll hit traffic coming home from the airport that time of day.”

I glared at my twin sister. “Total time will be more like an hour from the time I leave the house, drive to the airport, pick him up and then it’s twenty minutes with the one person I never want to see again as long as I live.”

“You see Joe all the time,” she pointed out. “It’s practically the same thing.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it, even if they are identical twins.” I knew I should have just dropped her off after our trip to the gym but no, I had to come inside and hang out for a while. It would have been one thing if I still shared her apartment, but I didn’t. I’d moved back home a few weeks earlier in an effort to save some money. But Liz had lured me in, even waiting until we had dinner in the oven before broaching the subject.

“Please, Mandie?” Her pleading blue eyes locked on mine. “Can’t you just do this for me?”

“You want me to go to the airport and pick up your boyfriend’s brother, even though you know I despise him?” I sat back on the couch, arms crossed in front of me. “You want me to take time out of my day, drive all the way to the airport, wait for him, drive him all the way back to Republic – spending at least twenty minutes alone with him,” I repeated, “all because you’re getting a pedicure?”

There it is :). Hope you like it. Hope there’s no glaring errors I’m missing at 2:30 in the morning. And here’s hoping I can now go to sleep.

Later today… the first in a series of posts about my son. Because even though his birthday isn’t for another 11 days, the saga sort of began three years ago today…